RIDING DIRTY (Steel Titans MC Book 4) by Franca Storm (ebook voice reader .txt) 📕

down deep, past all the blocks I had in place, that titanium-strength wall I kept up to everybody. It was the look I gave people to draw out what was inside, to get to the truth and the heart of things. The irony was so fucking bitter, I couldn’t stand it, and it had a rumbling chuckle bursting out of me.

“Seriously? There’s humor to be found here?” she groused.

“You know, darlin’, sometimes humor’s all we got left when shit hits the fan.”

She arched an eyebrow. “And sometimes people do whatever they can to avoid answering a question.”

“You’re crazy intense. Anybody ever tell you that?”

“Slade,” she groused.

I pushed out of the chair and walked up to her at the desk. “I’m serious. It ain’t good to be that way all the time.”

“Stop playing games and just answer the question.”

As I rounded the desk and stopped right in her space, I held up my hands in mock-surrender, “No games. Just calling it like it is. Giving you a piece of advice right from the mouth of somebody who’s spent way too much time being nothing but intense. It ain’t healthy and it ain’t sustainable. It wears you down. Big time.”

I saw a reaction from her, but in the next moment, she’d shrugged it off. “I’m not you.”

Nice try. She was more like me than she wanted to admit. It was more than I wanted to admit. I sat on the edge of her desk, right next to her laptop, ignoring her agitated look at me getting right up in her space. In fact, I leaned in, putting myself even closer to her, just inches from her face. “We walk in the same world. We do what we gotta do to survive, to protect the ones we care about. We’re both haunted by way too many things we’ve done in the name of all that. And, we’re both trapped. The only difference between us is I ain’t in denial.” The intensity of it all taking me over, I reached out and stroked my thumb over her cheek. She sucked in a breath, but didn’t move a muscle, her eyes locked on mine, as I said, “We’re the fucking same, Willa. Broken. Damaged. Ruthless. Dirty.”

Darkness infected her gaze, a darkness I knew all too well. All this talk had her going to that place, the one we both worked to keep buried.

I saw her mentally shake it off, and when her eyes locked with mine, all I saw was heat. A blazing heat that threatened to burn me to ash where I stood. Jesus Christ.

She grinned slyly and chewed on her lip.

Then she licked the bottom one, real slow and all erotic.

Fucking woman had my dick reacting, my blood heating, need spiraling out of control.

Before I could even try to get a handle on it, her hand shot out, her fingers grabbing at the belt of my jeans. With a rough tug, she jerked me to her.

It was a dominant move I hadn’t seen coming from her. Not when it came to fucking.

The first night here when we’d gotten close to it, it’d been clear that she’d wanted that from me, she’d wanted the untamable beast who delivered more pain than pleasure to any woman who spread her legs for him, the insatiable demon who went too hard, too rough, leaving any who tried to handle him as nothing but a shell after he was done with them.

But, as I looked back at her, trying to figure out where she was headed, if she had it in her to go the distance with what she’d started, I saw a flash of the devil in those sexy blues of hers.

Abruptly, it was snuffed out.

Talk about jarring. What was she playing at? Was it payback for those times when I’d shut it down after we’d almost gone there?

She released my belt, then shoved her hands into my chest, knocking me back hard into the desk. “Distraction over. Now answer my fucking question.”

With a pissed growl, I pushed off the desk and glared at her. She kept pushing, but she weren’t gonna like the answer. Likely, it was gonna be another roadblock in getting things sorted. “I always have a backup plan. Several, a lot of the time, actually. It’s just good sense. It ain’t about going around you, or not liking your way of doing things. It’s about survival. Nothing personal.” I drew in a breath, then looked her right in the eye as I told her, “If all else fails, I’ll force you out of the way to somewhere safe, then I’ll replicate what you did with The Jackals.”

She stared back at me in that invasive way again. I just held her gaze until she was done. When she nodded, I knew she’d seen there was no threat and no ill will toward her.

“So, we good?”

“Yes, I believe you. The plan isn’t that bad and it doesn’t involve screwing me over, so I’m fine with it. Besides, it won’t come to pass, because I’m involved and our first strategy will succeed.”

I snorted. “You really think a lot of yourself, don’t you woman?”

She leaned forward across her desk, telling me, “Freeman doesn’t intend to stay down any longer. The Strikers Rising Motorcycle Club is proof enough of that.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“That’s what he’s calling the reincarnation of the Strikers MC that he’s trying to form. Not terribly original, or out of the box thinking regarding the name, but still.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Fucking shit. So, he’s at the Strikers compound and Nolan’s there with him. Let’s get on it then.”

“I don’t know about Nolan yet. We need to know what their plan is exactly. It could be bigger than just kicking your ass, or burying you. Nolan is a formidable threat in his own right. With somebody like Freeman on board, with all that drive and ambition, it could lead to hell knows what. We wait until we hear back from Ricky.”

“It’s